


For Now

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-09-30
Updated: 1999-09-30
Packaged: 2018-11-20 14:51:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11337717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Te wrote a story called Trust that broke my heart.  I wrote this to make myself feel better.  It didn't exactly work out that way





	For Now

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

For Now by Spike

From: The Spike []  
Sent: Sunday, August 29, 1999 10:40 AM  
"For Now"  
by Spike  
5/98  
M/K  
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not never. No how.   
Summary: Old-ish but never before posted. I wrote this vignette for Te after I finished reading Trust. Or, correction, after I stopped crying enough to be able to see again after I finished reading Trust. It's sole purpose was to ameliorate some of the pain of Trust so I could sleep that night. It worked about as well as a field medic's bandage on an amputation, so *warning* cheerful it is not. And it's got big-time spoilers for Trust, so if you haven't read that yet, don't read this. Not betaed. Many thanks to Te for permission to share this.  
'Trust' can be found at: http://unicorn-x.net/te/fic/trust.txt   
Rating: R  
Archive: Archive X only  
URL: http://avalon.net/~nonie/spike/spindex.htm  
Feedback: Any and all to   
This begins the instant Trust ends... 

* * *

"For Now"  
by Spike  
5/98

Alex starts and wakes, abruptly. Lies there open-eyed. Not scared. Dreaming his own death doesn't scare him like monsters in the dark. It just hurts. It steals the world away from him. Beside him, Mulder lies sleeping. That was the worst part. The part where he didn't like Mulder. Didn't love Mulder. He'd loved someone else in the dream. Loved them and lost them. And Mulder had loved him, but he hadn't loved Mulder. 

Christ it hurts. It's like betrayal. Looking at the long, smooth back beside him. He is angry at Mulder. *How could you let me not love you? How could you not be good enough?* He doesn't want it to be that way. And it's not that way. Not in life.

But it's so hard to shake off the dream. He was crazy in the dream. He didn't care. He'd been staring into the fucking sun. And he'd done that before in dreams. Stared into the sun until he was blind. Until the flesh burnt and bubbled, skin split and fell off his skull. Not in this one though. The sun had been pale. Pale and not hot enough to burn away anything anymore and he could still feel the ache of that loss. 

But what? What had he lost? He'd said: 'we won!'. So hadn't he won? And why was Mulder so far away? And why the fuck wasn't it fading back into nightmareland? Why was it rising, still rising like a fucking piston in his head, making his throat ache and his chest ache and his eyes burn? Why did it hurt like this?

And Christ, his arm... he'd... don't. Don't, he tells himself, but it's too late. He is making a fist of his ghost hand and he can't let go because in the dream he'd grown it back, had it back and whole and beautiful and holding a gun...and it had cost too much. Hadn't been worth the blood and...

"Alex...?" Sleepy, but not as sleepy as it could have been. A note of fear beneath the muzzy concern.

"Nothing, Mulder," Alex says, not ready to confront, explain. Wanting to keep this locked away a while more. But Mulder is turning already. Reaching for Alex, sleep-gentle fingers just brushing the cheek he turns away.

And Mulder stills his hand, pulls back. Alex can feel him come awake, come up on one elbow, frowning at him in the dark.

"You're leaving me," Mulder says. It isn't a question and it hurts, oh Christ, it hurts. That fucking lump in his chest is going to crush him, grind his windpipe into mush and he will die. Only he doesn't die. He is still there on the bed with Mulder. And he can't talk, can't even begin to explain how much he doesn't want to go, how much he hates this. Fucking *hates* this... And please, Mulder, please be good enough to make it stop.

And maybe Mulder reads his mind. 

"I can't fix this," he says. "I don't know how."

"It's just a fucking dream," Alex squeezes the words out, hears the angry lie in his own voice.

"Dream? Whatever. This has been going on for months," says Mulder. "I don't... I don't know... 

"*Fuck.*" Mulder sits up, suddenly, legs over the edge of the bed like he's going to get up. But he doesn't get up, just sits there, hands fisting the edge of the mattress like it hurts. Hurts. Alex wants to reach out for him, but he's on the wrong side. On the ghost hand side. And he doesn't even know if he would reach for Mulder anyway. Or just lie there wanting to. Or wishing he wanted to. Just like Mulder, he doesn't know...fuck.

Mulder's head is bowed. Shaking a little, but if he's crying, he's doing it too quietly for Alex to hear. Fuck it's cold in Mulder's bedroom. Cold and dark and it smells like dust and like the sheets need changing and like drying sweat. After a long time, the lump in his chest shrivels enough that Alex can get a full breath into his lungs. So tired, like he's been holding this pose for years.

"Mulder," he says, finally. "Come back to bed." Mulder, who hasn't moved yet, shakes his head. But then he lies back down. Somehow, with no more thought than plants turning toward the sun, they move together. 

Mulder's skin is cold and dry as talc and Alex feels his hand move automatically to stroke, caress the lines of his body. Feels Mulder's hands doing the same upon his own. Not sex, not even comfort in the touch, just need. Blind need. It feels like sorry. It feels like sorry, I love you, good-bye. It feels like forever, but neither of them leaves and Alex doesn't even notice when he falls asleep again, or that the sleep is dark and quiet and mercifully without the penury of dreams. 

For now.

-end-


End file.
